Top 6 Leading PHP Frameworks For 2017

PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is the most popular and a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language for web projects. Today, web developers require to build complex websites and it can take too much time and trouble to always get-go from scratch, so came the need for a more structured natural way of development. Here PHP frameworks provide web developers with a satisfactory solution for that. But, the important question here is “Why to Use A PHP Framework”.

There are plenty of reasons behind this and we have listed below some key reason on why developers like to use PHP frameworks:

Provide organized and maintainable code

Allows you grow over time as web apps running on frameworks are scalable

You do not need to worry about low-level security of a site

Follow the MVC pattern that makes sure the separation of presentation and logic

Promote modern web development practices like object-oriented programming tools

It makes speed development possible

Laravel

Released in 2011, a relatively new PHP platform but it has won everyone’s heart by providing an amazing community. This framework is also known as PHP framework for Web Artisans” and the founder of Laravel built it to address lots of concerns such as name and lack of built-in support for user authorization. The prime reason why Laravel is the highly recommended framework is that it leaves the entire architecture open for all third-party plugins. Laravel is designed for fast building applications using the MVC architecture.

Some of the key benefits of Laravel are Organize ?les and code, Unit testing (FAST on HHVM), MVC architecture (and PHP7), Rapid application development, High level of abstraction, Best documentation of any, Tons of out of the box functionality, payment integration with stripe, Overloading capabilities using dynamic methods, ORM very strong encryption packages. Have in mind Laravel does lots of queries on your database.

Zend

A firm and stable PHP model, Zend comes with lots of amazing configuration options that means it is recommended for more complex ones rather than smaller projects. It has partners like IBM, Google, Microsoft, and Adobe. Zend Framework 2 which is the latest release has several amazing features, including a handy drag and drop editor with support for front-end technologies (HTML, JavaScript, CSS), cryptographic coding tools, fast online debugging, a connected Database Wizard PHP Unit testing tools, and so on. This framework was created with the Agile methodology that helps to deliver high-quality apps to enterprise customers.

CodeIgniter
One of the oldest PHP frameworks, CodeIgniter was released in 2006 and focused on RAD. Some of the key features of this framework are MVC Support, Robust Security, Small Footprint, Active Community, Great Performance, etc. It comes with a simple, templating and substitution based tool. Apart from this, Add-ons/plug-ins are available for full-blown templating engines, and you can use your own coding or naming conventions too, with only some caveats that deal with class name conflicts. Keep in mind that CodeIgniter looks to empower you rather than shackling you.

Some of the major pro’s of this framework include Very developer friendly, Outperforms most other frameworks (non MVC), it does not need any special supports or dependencies, Good documentation with LTS (Long Term Support), it has the ability to use normal web hosting services well, by using standard databases such as MySQL. CodeIgniter has a few cons as well. For example -No name space’s, Not as friendly towards unit testing as others and a few libraries that are built on the framework. Apart from this, Severely out of date and doesn't support modern PHP features as well as has security issues which have been outstanding for years without being patched by the development team.

CakePHP
A lightweight framework with amazing documentation, CakePHP is simple and needs compact coding, which eventually results in the developer having to write less code. It well-known known for its easy-to-understand framework as well as for the speed of its templating process. THe built-in “CRUD, is one of its exclusive features that is fantabulous for database communication. Some of the key benefits of CakePHP include a Modern framework and Supports PHP 5.5+, Database Access, Caching, Validation, and Authentication, are built in, Actively developed, Very good for commercial web applications (MIT License), Scaffolding system and Fast builds, scripting prevention and SQL Injection prevention. But, it is not as good for constructing Restful APIS.

CakePHP contains different features in order to cover all the disparate measures required by web developers. For instance, security, emails, request handling, cookies and session management.

Yii

Yii PHP framework is widely used all over the world. It includes lots of features helps to boost the website performance as it becomes faster in comparison with other frameworks. Some key highlights of Yii include Easy to Install, Extremely Extensible, Uses Modern Technologies, Codeception testing integration, Shorten Development Time, Improved URL handling and processing, Documentation generator, Translations of core messages available in 26 languages and Performance and security improvements. Yii is the right choice for high-level web development such as portals, CMS, business apps, forum and many other advanced web development. When it comes to security, it provides amazing tools to work using safety from authentication, SQL injections, passwords, Cross Site Scripting, Cross-Site Request Forgery and so on. Slow websites create disgruntled users, thus Yii provides you with a lot of tools to help you squeeze more speed out of your app.

Symfony

One of the best PHP frameworks and extremely popular because of its consistent and persistent output. The elements of Symfony2’s are reusable PHP libraries that can be treated as stand-alone and they are configurable, secure and tested. On October 2005, the first Symfony version was introduced as a free software under the MIT license. The prime aim Symfony2 is to accelerate the creation and maintenance of web applications simply by replacing repetitive coding tasks. It also helps web developers to build robust enterprise applications.

Some of the key benefits of Symfony include well documented, maintained, or supported, High performance because of bytecode caching, good support and is very mature and is Stable. Keep in mind that While the documentation is good, but there is a steep learning curve. Also, it does not support MVC.

Conclusion

So, this is our top 5 most popular frameworks in the PHP development community. PHP frameworks have made the development process really easy and every professional PHP development company uses one or more of these platforms as their major development platform. If you need to choose PHP frameworks, then you can go for any of these as all are easy to use plus has all the features that PHP developers need. The documentation is quite comprehensive and you could easily see the complexity and implementation of a particular project just by reading the code. Remember, whether you’re an experienced programmer or a fresher, you’ll love them all.

Sunil Gupta | 2017-09-22 02:21:45

With more than 7 years, Satish Chandra is working as a Sales & Marketing or client relationship manager at SAM Web Studio. Satish’s unique, powerful and wide-ranging skill set has enabled him to successfully contribute in plenty of roles, including project management, marketing, business development, client relation and many others. Some of the key duties of Mr. Satish include promoting opportunities for communication like keeping clients informed of process or procedural changes and distinguishing and nurturing opportunities to grow business with active clients. He takes on roles outside of his normal job duties and often provides support to other departments as well.